Once We Were

shaking, but it wouldn’t go away.

Finally, she just clenched our muscles as tight as she could. Our hand slipped into our pocket, fingers closing around our chip—the one Ryan had given us before Nornand. We hadn’t carried it in a long time, but I’d slipped it in our pocket that morning, needing whatever comfort I could get.

“Why did you choose tonight for the bombing, Sabine?” The question had to be squeezed up our throat, forced from our mouth.

Sabine lost her smile.

I did not want to be here for this.

<No> Addie shouted. <No, Eva—don’t you dare; don’t you dare. Please.>

<I won’t> I whispered. But it was so hard to stay.

The floor creaked. But no one had moved. No, Devon had. He took his place at our side, not touching us, but there, and the trembling didn’t stop, but Addie said, louder, stronger, “Why are you so insistent it has to be tonight?”

Sabine’s mouth dropped open. “You’re the one who stole it? The disk? You stole my disk?”

Everyone else, I realized, was watching Addie and me, too. A few threw glances at Sabine, but always, their gazes returned to us.

Realization brought with it a cold, trembling sweat.

They were all in this together.

Our eyes found Jackson’s. Addie stared at him, and he stared back, and he was the first to look away.

<Oh, God, Eva> Addie whispered. If she were anyone else, I would say I can’t imagine how you’re feeling. But she was Addie, and I didn’t need to imagine. I felt it with her: disbelief first, because both Addie and I had always been good at denial; then anger, all-consuming; then horror—and pain. Pain most of all. I didn’t bother speaking. Just held her together when I knew she might have trouble doing it herself.

I knew how to do it. I’d done it our entire lives.

“Addie,” Sabine said quietly. It was the gentleness in her tone that set Addie off.

Our voice went shrill. “There are going to be people in there! There are going to be people—”

“Addie.” Christoph looked as if he might rise from his seat. “Not so loud—”

“Not so loud?” she screamed.

<Addie.> I hugged her against me. <Addie, Addie.>

“You all knew.” Addie blinked rapidly. “We’d thought—we’d thought maybe some of you didn’t know, but you—you all knew. You’re all—”

“Eva,” Cordelia said.

Addie whirled to face her. Our face twisted. “No! No, you do not get to do this to her. You do not get to play with her feelings anymore. She trusted you.”

Devon’s hand closed around our wrist. He squeezed gently, briefly, then let go again.

“It’s over,” Addie said, quieter. “It’s stopping.”

Jackson had remained silent and frozen this entire time. Now he shifted, not toward us but away, his shoulders spreading against the back of the couch. I couldn’t see him breathe.

“What do you mean by that?” he said.

It hurt Addie to look at him. A quick knife to the gut as they made and held eye contact.

“I mean everything stops.” She took a deep breath. “We get rid of that liquid oxygen. Safely. We dismantle the bomb—”

Christoph—Christoph in all his bitter-eyed glory—laughed. He looked at the others. He didn’t say it, but it was etched in every inch of him: Can you believe this?

“I’ll tell Peter,” Addie said. I wanted to sink under into my swirls of dreams. But I couldn’t leave her here alone. I couldn’t let myself run away and hide.

“Eva,” Christoph said, a barked command. “Is she even there, Addie? Are you —”

<Let me> I said. <Let me speak.>

She hesitated. <Are you sure?>

<Let me.>

So she did, moving aside, allowing our limbs, our tongue, to fall under my control.

“I’m here,” I said softly.

Somehow, it was worse, knowing that now they were all looking at me, that those looks of betrayal and frustration and anger were directed at me.

“You didn’t tell me,” I said, and cursed the waver in our voice. “You didn’t say—didn’t say there were going to be people inside.”

“Eva,” Christoph said. “We didn’t want you to have to know.”

I tensed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well,” he said, “if you didn’t know, then if—if something did go wrong, it would be that much easier for you to argue your innocence, right?” He turned to the others. Jackson was the only one with the grace to look uncomfortable at the blatant lie. At least I wasn’t the only one who tried to fool herself.

“Christoph, I’m hybrid. You think saying Oh, I didn’t know would—” I took a sharp breath and cut myself off. It wasn’t even worth the argument.

“Did you target these people specifically?” Devon asked in that steady, weighted way of his. “Or were you going to kill them because it was the most convenient?”

Christoph leapt off the couch. I made myself stay rooted to the spot, but he wasn’t coming for me; he came for Devon, who simply stared back at him as if the older boy wasn’t nearly shaking with rage.

“We’re going to kill them because they’ve got it coming.”

“Christoph,” Sabine said, but he ignored her.

“We’re going to kill them because God only knows how many children they’ve killed—” He punctuated his words with his hands, making wild jabs in the air that came dangerously close to striking Devon in the face.

For all he reacted, Devon might have been watching an unamusing puppet show.

“Christoph,” Sabine snapped.

He breathed hard through his nose, his chest rising and falling like a bellow. He turned to face me and spat, “Go ahead and tell Peter. What do you think is going to come of that? Really think he’s going to do anything?” He pulled a mockingly shocked and pained expression. “Think he’s going to scold us?”

“He might not go to the police,” I said softly, “but I will.”

The room shut down. We’d been running on tension and cold fury before, but now it was as if the gauntlet had been thrown, as if I’d drawn a line in the sand.

For the briefest of moments, the look in Christoph’s eyes wasn’t fury, but hurt.

He took a few steps backward. At the same time, I felt fingers enclose ours. I looked to the boy standing beside me. He squeezed our hand, his mouth in a tight line, his jaw clenched, and I almost uttered Ryan aloud in relief. It might be Devon’s right to be here, but I wanted—needed—Ryan next to me.

Christoph spun toward Sabine. “We should never have gotten her involved. We never needed to.” His eyes lighted on Ryan. “We could have convinced him without her.”

Was he just saying that because he was angry? Or was it true? Had they never really wanted me or Addie? I hated myself for still caring, for how much the implications hurt.

Cordelia wore what could only be described as betrayal in her eyes. Sabine, who still sat cross-legged on the sofa, bore an expression of quiet disappointment. Not disappointment that her plans were falling apart, but disappointment in me.